


can't help falling (in love with you)

by DrPearlGatsby



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fluff, Humor, Idiots in Love, Reylo Week 2020, and they were ROOMMATES, caution: chair, drabble-ish, oh my god they were roommates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:00:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23952703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrPearlGatsby/pseuds/DrPearlGatsby
Summary: “Bean, what’s this still doing here? Did you forgetagain?” She holds up the lease agreement where he’d left it—the one requiring both their signatures, due in two days. The one he hasn’t signed. Rey drops the page onto the table, pushing it toward him. “You didn’t even—”And then she stops.(In which Ben is going crazy with wanting for his roommate Rey, but as she doesn't seem to reciprocate his feelings, his only option is to move out.)
Relationships: Rey & Ben Solo, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 16
Kudos: 130
Collections: REYLO WEEK 2020





	can't help falling (in love with you)

**Author's Note:**

> A one-shot for the fifth day of Reylo Week 2020 to fill the prompt Touch.

When she finally gets home he’s waiting for her at the kitchen table, a book open in front of him. He hasn’t read a single word in the last half hour, as anxious and sick as he’s been feeling knowing she would be off of work soon.

“Bean!” Rey exclaims as she kicks off her shoes, and he looks up in spite of how much he’d like to stare at his book forever. _Maybe she won’t notice. Maybe we can just have one more night_.

Rey skirts around the kitchen island towards him and catches his expression. “Aww, grumpy Bean,” she teases.

Ben feels his shoulders tense as she approaches, holding his breath when she stops beside his chair and wraps her arms around his shoulders, resting her chin on the top of his head as she squeezes him in a brief hug. Before he can say anything, before he can pull away or else reach up to wrap his arms around her, she lets go and wanders back toward the cabinets, calling a friendly, “How’re you?”

“Tired,” Ben answers as she starts rummaging around to make herself dinner. He stares hard at the book, concentrating on the image of her in his peripheral vision, remembering belatedly to turn the page and give the illusion of reading. She puts a pot on the stove full of water—ramen, her favorite late-night meal after a long shift—and starts to make her way back to the kitchen table when she pauses at the edge of the counter.

Ben braces himself.

“Bean, what’s this still doing here? Did you forget _again_?” She holds up the lease agreement where he’d left it—the one requiring both their signatures, due in two days. The one he hasn’t signed. Rey drops the page onto the table, pushing it toward him. “You didn’t even—”

And then she stops.

Ben stares at the page, at her suddenly still hand. He swallows, steels himself, and opens his mouth. “Rey. I’ve been thinking—I should move out.” Rey’s hand retracts. “I… the data suggests that the money I’ve been dumping into rent would be much better-spent on a property I might actually keep, and…” He allows his eyes to wander up to her face, but what he sees there breaks his heart.

Rey looks as if she’s been slapped, shock written plainly on her face, but she quickly drops their eye contact and turns to go back into the kitchen, opening the fridge and making a production of selecting her ramen toppings. “It’s, uh,” she says from behind the refrigerator door. “It’s fine, Ben, it’s just—I hadn’t planned on moving out so soon.”

Ben panics. “Rey, I mean, a house _alone_ , not with a—”

“Of course! Of course.” She stands up and closes the fridge without taking anything out of it, waving off his statement. “I know what you mean. It’s just, with the rent here—”

“I can pay until you find another roommate,” he says quickly. Rey’s proud of the little living she’s been able to make and doesn’t like to ask for help, but he knows she can’t afford the two-bedroom apartment by herself. “I’m practically breaking the lease on _you_ , and it just wouldn’t feel right.”

Rey’s water begins to boil, and Ben watches as she picks up the packet of ramen and puts it down again without opening it. She turns the stove off and goes to dump the water out.

“Rey.”

“I’m not hungry,” she says quickly. “I just _really_ need a shower, so I’m gonna go do that.”

“Rey,” he calls her name more urgently as she brushes past him, but in seconds she’s back, one hand latching onto his bicep. She’s holding him firmly, not exactly squeezing or pinching, but he senses she’s holding herself back. Ben tries to shake her off, but she holds tight.

“Ben, how long have you been thinking about this.” Her voice sounds like a threat. Then before he can answer, her face softens and she’s running her hand gently up and down his upper arm.

He’s mesmerized by the movement of her hand, the faint smell of her soap and shampoo, the way the light over the kitchen table looks like a halo behind her chestnut hair. The desire to grab her and kiss her is so strong that he almost succumbs, but instead he goes the opposite direction and wrenches his hand out of her grasp. “It’s _that_.” He stands up before she can grab him again, stepping backwards so the chair is between them. “I just can’t keep doing this. You’re always touching me, always hugging or patting my arm or leaning on me on the couch, and I can’t keep pretending anymore.”

Rey begins to cry. “I’m sorry.” She shrugs, shaking her head. “I’m so sorry I made you feel that way. Truly. I know that’s not what you signed up for, and I shouldn’t have let my feelings get in the way, but _please_ , please don’t leave.”

Ben short-circuits. “Your feelings?” he repeats, all the steam going out of him.

“I knew better, with the hugs and all, but it’s just you’re so _kind_ and you smell nice and you look like _that_ —how could I not?”

“Not what?”

Rey pulls her arms in close to her body, hugging herself. “Fall in love with you.”

Ben nearly leaps out of his skin trying to get to her, but there’s the problem of the chair—he miscalculates and one foot gets tangled in the rungs, and the next thing he knows he’s slammed his shoulder into the wall and Rey has leapt back out of the way. He kicks at the chair, extracting his foot and stumbling forward to where Rey is standing. She reaches out to steady him by the upper arms, apologizing for touching him again as he lets out a string of curses at the way his foot feels with his weight on it. Rey helps him hobble to the couch, pulling over the ottoman for elevation and fetching a bag of frozen peas for his foot. It’s all quite stupid.

“How bad is it?” she asks when he flinches from the cold of the peas.

He exhales a few short breaths, working through the pain. “I don’t know—maybe my ankle’s twisted?”

“Oh Bean,” Rey says softly before remembering herself, and the tender look in her eyes drains out again. Her voice is all business when she fishes her phone out of her pocket. “I’ll Google Urgent Care.”

“Wait. Rey.”

She freezes, finger poised over the touchscreen, and glances up at him, her expression hard. “You don’t have to explain yourself.”

“I’m in love with you too.”

Her mouth falls open.

“It was too much because I couldn’t keep hiding my feelings; it was torture living here with you _touching_ me all the time when all I wanted to do was grab you and kiss you except I thought you weren’t interested—”

Rey laughs. “What _literally_ have I ever done,” her voice goes wavery, but she’s still laughing as she moves toward him, “that made you think I _wasn’t_ interested?”

“I don’t know, I’m just an idiot! You saw what happened with the chair!”

And then she’s kneeling on the couch cushion beside him, squeezing him in a tight hug before leaning back just slightly so that their faces are even. Ben barely has time to glance at her lips before she leans in and kisses him, several quick, firm presses before she opens her mouth to him and nips at his lower lip. It’s so beyond words, so frantic and ecstatic and _hot_ that he loses himself and accidentally flexes his injured foot.

He breaks away cursing and Rey giggles, pressing another kiss to his cheek. “You’re my favorite idiot,” she says, her eyes sparkling with love and mirth. Then she gets up from the couch to retrieve her phone and Googles Urgent Care.

**Author's Note:**

> *cue groaning at the title*


End file.
